Lots of interesting stories get trapped inside minerals. Zircons can host clocks that can tell us the ages of the oldest pieces of our Solar System. Diamonds hold onto little bits of the Earth’s mantle that they captured before being blasted upward through the crust. Sometimes crystals can even contain small amounts of fluid locked away since the time they solidified.

The authors of a new study went looking for some of that ancient water in a slightly different place—fractures in extremely old rocks. What they found in that water recorded an impressive amount of history.

Deep in a Canadian mine, the shafts pass through some rocks that have seen a lot. About 2.7 billion years ago, sediment was formed from broken down bits of even older rocks that are now lost to us. The layers of sediment are frequently interrupted by thick layers of lava flows containing the copper and zinc that would one day entice humans to burrow 2.4 kilometers down into the darkness. The sediment was eventually buried deeply enough that, after solidifying into rock, it was metamorphosed into even tougher stuff. During that time, it was also bathed in super-hot hydrothermal fluids.

It appears that some of that fluid has been trapped in the rocks ever since. But how can we know this? How can a vial of water tell you what it’s been up to? Well, you have to ask the chemical tenants within it.

The most interesting of these residents are the non-reactive noble gases dissolved in the water. The ratio of the isotopes of helium present show that almost all of the helium came from the radioactive decay of other elements—it takes time for that much to accumulate. That story is corroborated by the argon isotopes, too. The neon looks like a mixture of neon from the atmosphere with a healthy dose of the products of radioactive decay, similar to how fluids locked in very old minerals look.

But it’s the xenon that really starts coughing up information. There were nine different isotopes of xenon in the samples, and they were able to answer a range of questions. First, they bear the mark of fluids that interacted with magma—a remnant from the hydrothermal action. And the fingerprint once again looks like something that has been isolated from the atmosphere for a very long time. In fact, it preserves the isotopic composition of the ancient atmosphere, which has slowly evolved over the ages.

Based on the gasses within it, the water looks like it has been isolated, but for how long? According to our understanding of how atmospheric xenon changed over time, the signature in the samples looks like air from 1.5 to 2.6 billion years ago. Based on the amount of radioactive uranium, thorium, and potassium, you can also ballpark how long it would take for the daughter isotopes (the breakdown products of those radioactive elements) of helium, neon, argon, and xenon to accumulate. That estimate comes out to roughly 1.1 to 1.7 billion years, depending on which isotope you look at.

So the evidence shows that this water has been sitting around in these rocks for at least a billion years, and possibly up to 2.6 billion years. (Cue the rush to bottle and sell it as some sort of fountain of agelessness…)

If the age is not enough for you, there may be an even more interesting chapter to follow. Along with all these noble gases are some that are more prone to engaging in chemical reactions. In particular, there’s plenty of H2 and methane—compounds that can make microbial life possible. If there were, say, single-celled archaea living in there, they too would likely have been isolated for over a billion years.

The possibility that life could have survived for so long locked away from the Earth’s surface turns the researchers’ thoughts elsewhere in the solar system—like Mars. “If such ancient fluids… are preserved deep in the terrestrial crust on billion-year timescales,” they wrote, “perhaps similar potential buried biomes may be preserved at depth in the subsurface of Mars on planetary timescales.” If life did exist on Mars at some point in the past (which is a question we have yet to answer), it might still be there in places where geology and chemistry conspired to create deep, dark refuges.

Of course, that’s a lot of speculation. The researchers are currently looking for organisms in their samples to see if there are a few more secrets they can pry loose.

“If such ancient fluids… are preserved deep in the terrestrial crust on billion-year timescales,” they wrote, “perhaps similar potential buried biomes may be preserved at depth in the subsurface of Mars on planetary timescales.”

Not if they were only looking for noble gasses in the tests done so far. Checking for microbes (and doing the contamination protection right to keep the results valid) isn't something geologists normally do; they probably need to head over to the biology department to find additional collaborators for the followup work.

Not if they were only looking for noble gasses in the tests done so far. Checking for microbes (and doing the contamination protection right to keep the results valid) isn't something geologists normally do; they probably need to head over to the biology department to find additional collaborators for the followup work.

Well I would assume that the carbon would get in the way in the mass spectrometer.

Not if they were only looking for noble gasses in the tests done so far. Checking for microbes (and doing the contamination protection right to keep the results valid) isn't something geologists normally do; they probably need to head over to the biology department to find additional collaborators for the followup work.

more likely there is a lot of cross contamination from the drilling and exposure.

This is an amazing story. Who knows what secrets and evidence of the history of early life forms lays waiting for us, locked in the depths waiting to be found. Ars - please follow this story as it progresses, fascinating!

This water is sentient and has the ability to take over humans with its richer and further evolved components. First it will begin with those foolish enough to get near it. Then those who study it. Last will be the rest of the world as one by one humanity becomes infected by the touch of bodily fluids of any sort, including sweat, and it makes its way into the water supply as we become puppets.

If this was at molten rock temperatures when it formed, is it really possible for any microbes to still exist? I'm skeptical.

Well, it wouldn't have been isolated until well after the lavas cooled. The hydrothermal fluids that coursed through later on wouldn't have been that much different than the environment of deep sea hydrothermal vents, where crazy stuff manages to get by...

This water is sentient and has the ability to take over humans with its richer and further evolved components. First it will begin with those foolish enough to get near it. Then those who study it. Last will be the rest of the world as one by one humanity becomes infected by the touch of bodily fluids of any sort, including sweat, and it makes its way into the water supply as we become puppets.

Forget that, according to the conspiracy folks the important thing now a days to know is if its fluoridated or not.

Does anyone know the depth level of this mine from bottom to top? I was curious because I live next to something ‎very similar and would assume that this water was found in a man made cavern and not the actual bottom of the mine shaft exposed to sunlight.

This water is sentient and has the ability to take over humans with its richer and further evolved components. First it will begin with those foolish enough to get near it. Then those who study it. Last will be the rest of the world as one by one humanity becomes infected by the touch of bodily fluids of any sort, including sweat, and it makes its way into the water supply as we become puppets.

Forget that, according to the conspiracy folks the important thing now a days to know is if its fluoridated or not.

This water is sentient and has the ability to take over humans with its richer and further evolved components. First it will begin with those foolish enough to get near it. Then those who study it. Last will be the rest of the world as one by one humanity becomes infected by the touch of bodily fluids of any sort, including sweat, and it makes its way into the water supply as we become puppets.

According to our understanding of how atmospheric xenon changed over time

Xenon is a noble gas (although perhaps the least noble), but I would not expect any changes in the xenon itself over time.

How does atmospheric xenon change over time?

Xenon, with its chemical inertness, heavy mass and many isotopes is a nifty tracer. I am most familiar with how it helps elucidate the early planetary disk and planet differentiation as it is a product of some short-lived radioactive tracers:

"EVOLUTION OF MARTIAN ATMOSPHERIC, CRUSTAL, AND MANTLE XENONCOMPONENTS IN BASALTIC SHERGOTTITES. ... One explanation for these variations andwhich we were seeking the effects of in this study, is that they reflect the degree of incorporation of ‘crustal’ material into the parent melt of the shergottites." http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/sncs2002/pdf/6016.pdf

Here is the general xenon evolution in the atmosphere, the figure is self explanatory:

"The evolution of the stable isotope composition of atmospheric xenon (expressed in parts per thousand per unit mass) over time, deduced from the analysis of Archean barite and quartz. These tests suggest that this composition was intermediary between that of chondritic xenon and modern atmospheric xenon in the Archean period. These variations may illustrate certain interactions of the young Sun, which produced more UV rays, with the Archean atmosphere (Pujol et al. EPSL, 2011)" http://www.crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr/spip.php?article1092

My guess is the water is far far older than that. Probably on the order of 4.5 to 6.5 billion. Its just been trapped for the last 2 plus billion. Probably FORMED when the supernova that seeded the star cluster Sol formed in condensed after its explosion. But since water molecules are indistinguishable at the quantum level we'll never know for SURE, (we could get to five sigma if some intrepid astrophysics type can come up with a clever way to identify POPULATIONS of water molecules based on say deuterium to protium levels or some such).

Does anyone know the depth level of this mine from bottom to top? I was curious because I live next to something ‎very similar and would assume that this water was found in a man made cavern and not the actual bottom of the mine shaft exposed to sunlight.